Your Brain Has Departments.
Are You Sending Work to the Right One?

Evan LaPointe

Founder, CORE Sciences
4x Founder · Ex-Adobe Product Strategy

AUG 11 2024

Core Concept

The Brain Campus Model

"Most people rely on their history department way too much, it's the lowest-energy way to generate an answer."

Science dept: open-minded experimentation
Art dept: creative, boundless thinking
History dept: looking up what you already know (default, overused)
Route thoughts to better departments, dramatically better outputs

Framework

The CORE Model: 3 Systems × 3 Focus States × Ability

25%

time in alpha/gamma = optimal rule of thumb

trust levels in every relationship

brain channels (3 systems × 3 focus levels)

Safety system: activated by threat, doubt, or resentment, goal becomes "get safe," not "contribute"
Reward system: transactional, "That's not my job" is literally your reward system speaking
Purpose system: activated when you understand impact + care about the people affected, works at any scale, even a single email
Ability = reality context + imagination + logic, all three are incrementable through deliberate effort

The 9-channel grid Most teams only access Safety-Beta (manage optics, look busy) and Reward-Beta (hustle for KPIs). Purpose-Gamma is where breakthrough product thinking lives, most companies never deliberately enter it.

Deep Dive

Influence, Relationships & Habitat Mechanics

Influence: 3 speeds

Slow: let them fail and learn. Takes months or years. Common default
Moderate: teach them something new (Challenger Sale), share insight, let it percolate, return in 30 days
Fast: cognitive dissonance in the moment, "Why do you believe that?" Drill to the belief, not the surface behavior

Choose your influence character

Match your personality to a consistent mode: compassion-led, logic-led, creativity-led, enthusiasm-led, or devil's advocate. Get team permission to play that role repeatedly, consistency compounds influence.

Relationships: 3 dimensions

Ability: utility you bring, knowledge, reasoning, imagination. All incrementable
Trust (3 levels): T1 = delegate small tasks / T2 = do it as well as me / T3 = do it better than me
Appeal (most underrated): the experience of being around you. Low appeal = you become a sequestered node, information stops flowing to you

Start here above all else Ask: am I a miserable experience to work with? If yes, fix that before ability or trust. Everything in the system works better once appeal is addressed. Biology overrides meritocracy every time.

Tactics

Better Meetings, Focus & Culture

Prime before deciding: most meetings skip priming entirely. State the purpose, context, and principles before any decision-making
Name the principle conflict: speed vs. accuracy disagreements are unresolvable until you surface the underlying principles
Protect gamma time: block 2–3 hrs weekly + quarterly offsite. "Calendar invaders" now have a home, say yes but not now
Replace mission with role: "Who is glad we exist and why?", fact-based deduction, not inspiration. Culture built on logic outlasts culture built on feeling
Answer "why" with purpose: "because it's your job" is negligence. Name the real people waiting on the work
Floor vs. ceiling: be deliberate, are you raising the floor (fewer bad outcomes) or uncapping the ceiling (higher potential)?

Habitat > hand-to-hand combat Team conflict is mostly a symptom of a broken environment. Fix the habitat; dysfunction shrinks automatically. Dan Pink: "There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does."

Contrarian

Brain Science Myths That Are Slowing Your Team Down

✗ We're more alike than different, treat everyone the same way INSTEAD → ✓ Personality varies enormously. Build the muscle to work with people who think completely differently, don't fantasize they're wired like you.

✗ Mission / vision / values is how you build a real culture INSTEAD → ✓ Performative culture rarely lands. Use logical deduction: "Who is glad we exist, and why?" Culture built from facts beats culture built from inspiration every time.

✗ "Deep work" means blocking time to be productive and uninterrupted INSTEAD → ✓ Real deep work is gamma, rethinking the architecture, breaking existing frameworks. "Don't bother me beta" is just getting stuff done faster, not thinking differently.

✗ Lean into your strengths and don't worry about your weaknesses INSTEAD → ✓ Another person's strength is the patch to your bug. Unawareness of your weakness slows everyone else down, you don't have to fix it, but you must know it and name the patch.